this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
117 points (96.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

31594 readers
1697 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Ok, Lemmy, let's play a game!

Post how many languages in which you can count to ten, including your native language. If you like, provide which languages. I'm going to make a guess; after you've replied, come back and open the spoiler. If I'm right: upvote; if I'm wrong: downvote!

My guess, and my answer...My guess is that it's more than the number of languages you speak, read, and/or write.

Do you feel cheated because I didn't pick a number? Vote how you want to, or don't vote! I'm just interested in the count.

I can count to ten in five languages, but I only speak two. I can read a third, and I once was able to converse in a fourth, but have long since lost that skill. I know only some pick-up/borrow words from the 5th, including counting to 10.

  1. My native language is English
  2. I lived in Germany for a couple of years; because I never took classes, I can't write in German, but I spoke fluently by the time I left.
  3. I studied French in college for three years; I can read French, but I've yet to meet a French person who can understand what I'm trying to say, and I have a hard time comprehending it.
  4. I taught myself Esperanto a couple of decades ago, and used to hang out in Esperanto chat rooms. I haven't kept up.
  5. I can count to ten in Japanese because I took Aikido classes for a decade or so, and my instructor counted out loud in Japanese, and the various movements are numbered.

I can almost count to ten in Spanish, because I grew up in mid-California and there was a lot of Spanish thrown around. But French interferes, and I start in Spanish and find myself switching to French in the middle, so I'm not sure I could really do it.

Bonus question: do you ever do your counting in a non-native language, just to make it more interesting?

(page 3) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

Four. English, Hindi, Marathi (native) and Kannada. Sanskrit as well, but it's a dead language, and I can't speak Sanskrit because the grammar is extremely complicated. Had it in school for 3 years. So 5, if you're counting Sanskrit.

I generally count in English, unless I am using another language with my friends (excluding Sanskrit).

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago
  1. English, Spanish, Cantonese, and 2 of my native languages.
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Four. In one of them, literally only up to 10. The other 3, much higher.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago
  1. English, Spanish, French.

I speak English and pidgin Spanish (like, if you really have NO English I can try, and I can read it ok, very slowly.) No French beyond ballet, food, and personal care products as those often come with French labels.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

4: English (native), Spanish (learned at school and 1-10 is about all I recall), Mandarin, and Japanese.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

German, Cantonese, mandarin, English, French.

I used to know in Swahili too, does that count ?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Arabic, French, English, Chinese (mandarin), Russian.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

8

English (native) Spanish French German Hebrew Mandarin Japanese Finnish

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Well, I'm a native Romanian, so I can count (and speak, to various degrees) in Romanian, Italian, Spanish and French. Also, I live in Germany, so add that to the list. Do we count English? If so, I guess 6?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Turkish, English, German, Greek, Kurmanji, Japanese

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

bow many languages does Japanese count for

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese. Nothing special tbh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Replying opened the spoiler for me, but:

  1. English (native)
  2. Spanish (school)
  3. Esperanto (self-taught)
  4. Latin (university)

I can also count to five in German, and I used to know 1-10 in Swahili, but now only remember that "moja means one"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Unfortunately, I really only taught myself how to count, the days of the week, and the months of the year.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

wa', cha', wej, loS, vagh, jav, Soch, chorgh, Hut, wa'maH

(I can also do English, Latin, Spanish, French, and Japanese.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

English, German, Spanish, Polish, French

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

English Spanish German French

Yes

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

English, French, Spanish, German, Korean, Pig Latin, Oppish, Ubbi Dubbi

So eight, if the last few count.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Who am I to judge?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

English, Hebrew, Spanish, and Japanese

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Aurenkin 2 points 3 weeks ago

English, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Currently it's only English and Japanese. At one point I looked up how to count to ten in French, but I clearly don't remember it. I can also count to seven in Chinese (pitch probably incorrect) because of a song that starts off counting and stops at seven for whatever reason.

Though if we're counting writing, I'd be obligated to add Chinese because, at the very least, 1-10 in Japanese and Chinese are the same for just the numbers alone.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

5 languages so far (German, french, english, 2 african languages). It would probably be 9 when mandarin, cantonese, spanish and arabic gets up to par in a few years.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›